TOPIC:

With the migration away from downriggers,  are you guys still running Fish Hawk systems? Does it even matter that much with the weighted line presentation? I re-wired my electronics to a dedicated lifepo4 battery and new fuse panel. My Fish Hawk x4 is old and needs some new parts to get it back online, like a new power cord , mount and possibly a transducer. The new ones are nice but $$. FY-New battery is really small but I pulled 106.4 ah when I load tested it!

Riggers have been catching a ton of fish for me, and yes fishhawk makes a world of a difference.

Same here riggers are doing well 

I'm a downrigger guy too - still working for me and I hate fighting fish on weighted lines. I'm going to move the transducer to the new boat and see how it goes.
It was hard enough to buy, but $50 for a replacement power cord is a little hard to swallow .

Riggers have been my best presentation overall this yr. I don’t own a fishhawk and do ok, but wish I did. It would take a lot of guess work out I feel but too expensive for me at this time. 

We always run riggers! Always. I have a fish hawk but seldom put it down. I'll be 67 so I ran without on most of my life and did ok and still do ok. If I'm going to a different port then I'd definitely use it!

We use a sub-troll for many years now. We wouldn't fish without it this time of year. 

Riggers, outside of something rare, are generally the worst presentation for us regardless of boat (4). They do produce, and sometimes quite well, but more often are a side rod less sliders (and removing lake trout from the EQ).    With that being said, a fishawk is a great tool to understand the currents down deep or perhaps test what is going on mid column or anywhere in between (Temp & Current).  What you do have to understand is a fishawk currert reading down 90 definines the current down 90, while the majority of you spread is higher.  I am shocked at the boats that read a fish hawk down deep, and set all their rods accordingly.........GASP!    You have to read gps, understand surface currents, and depth currents and interpolate and estimate what is going on in between.  There is no magic speed at which the fish hit at, you just have to make sure all of your baits are running optimally to some extent with the action intended.  Every day is different.

I once had a prominent charter captain tell me its all about finding the exact nats ass speed, maybe its 2.5, maybe its 2.4, maybe its 2.3.   Thats bullshit.  Its all about getting all of your baits giving off the action they should.  This is highly dependent on what you have in the water.  Certain spoons are heavier, certain are lighter, how about size - then currents at that depth?  How are you pairing that with a Flasher or dodger on other rods, or perhaps even other select trout baits?   and at what depth and current?  It is certainly complex.  When you can figure out routinely how to fish every rod such that it has good action on any given trip, not to mention the right action, you have got it mostly figured out.

June and on, a probe is a great tool in the box.


 

I remember the days when we only had a Sitex paper graph and a compass. Never knew what the weather would bring so we watched the horizon to see if we needed to pick up and run, We knew what compass heading we ran out on and watched the rods to see how fast we were going.  No lead core, braid, copper or weighted steel.  We didn't always know where we were or where the current or temperature break was, but we had a beer or two and caught fish.  

That's a fact! Everything you mentioned is a fact but the big thing that's changed from then until now is we had boats that talked to each other and wasn't long and we were catching fish. I had a digi troll that hung over the side of the boat with a sinker that went down in the water and the part that mounted on the boat had a pointer and a flat strip with colors on it and we adjusted our speed until we caught a fish and then we knew where we needed to troll at.